| abstract
| - Coastercano is a variant of Mega Volcano with treehouse dies, which was designed by James M Hazelton III in 2007. The game is still under development. His basic idea was to create a game of Mega Volcano on the dynamic coaster board. Before each turn the player rolls a treehouse die (or maybe two). More ideas to toss around:
* Should the die action be optional, mandatory, or should it depend on the crest that was rolled?
* Should the action take place at the beginning of the turn, anywhere in the turn, or should it depend on the crest that was rolled?
* Should the eruption streams go in straight lines or should they follow the arrows? Possibilities here include: Usually straight, with arrow as a die roll; a die roll toggles between lines and arrow for everyone; everyone always has the option to go either way; players who roll any of 3 crests go straight, the other crests demand arrows.
* One or more crests should allow manipulation of the coasters. How many?
* Wild shouldn't just be a wild card--it should be a regular crest like the other five.
* Should one of the crests allow the player to freely pick up a cap and place it somewhere else, or would that be too powerful?]
* Should one treehouse die be rolled each turn, or should it be more? I'm thinking one, but it might be fun to playtest with more.
* Here's an idea: What if two treehouse dice are rolled, and the action allowed it based on the results of both dice. For example, rolling a DIG/TIP combination would allow the player to do either of two regular actions corresponding to DIG and TIP, but WILD/WILD would allow something more powerful, like moving a cap or providing two eruptions. This would also allow for more options in the actions, instead of limiting to 6 for a 6-sided treehouse die. But would this make for an overly complicated game? I suppose it wouldn't be unreasonable for a small action index card to accompany the game, since the players already have to bring 9 stashes of icehouse to the game.
* Mega Volcano is limited by the number of stashes it requires. If you're going by treehouse sets, it comes up to 10! Is there a way to do 5x5 volcano on a 6x6 coaster board?
* What of the special single-tree in volcano? Should it be eliminated to make room for a stopper? Or should each special piece award something special? Maybe redeemable for a second action on a turn?
* What's in a name? I thought about Volcoaster, but I like Coastercano better. Plus it fits the naming convention that Hexano started (kinda).
* While my initial idea for the game came before the discussion of the next IGDC being coaster-centric, it fits the criteria too well not to submit. However, would this be too close to Volcano to be eligible? I don't know if it would do very well, come to think of it, needing 10 treehouse stashes. Still, nothing gets people playing your game like the IGDC.
* I've never designed a game before, and this page-long list of unanswered question is somewhat intimidating. Brainstorming and playtesting help might be appreciated.
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